'It's not about me. It's about my kid. It's about my baby, Laura.'

Hobbs said he wants to spend time with his two boys, Jeremy, 9, and Jerry Hobbs IV, 15. The boys live with their half-sister and Hobbs' ex-girlfriend, Sheila Hollabaugh, who was also Laura's mother, in Grove City, Penn., where she moved shortly after the slayings. Remarried, she now works the overnight shift at a convenience store.

The boys want to see their father, Hollabaugh said.

Jeremy is too young to understand the situation, but his older brother has taken his father's ordeal personally, she said. The teenager "absolutely despises" police because he thinks they pin crimes on innocent people, she said.

"He's been really angry. You know, he's always known that his dad didn't do this," she said.

Hollabaugh, who said she has never believed Hobbs killed the girls, is happy for him. But she continues to receive therapy for issues related to Laura's death. She said she remains furious at Lake County prosecutors and police.

Hobbs, she said, was an easy scapegoat.

Prosecutors have not confirmed the identity of the man now under investigation, but his sister has identified him as Jorge Torrez, 21, a former Zion resident being held in the Arlington, Va., jail without bond on unrelated rape, abduction and robbery charges.

Torrez has not been charged with killing the girls, and he is slated for trial on the Virginia felonies in October.

Hobbs said he has no special plans for his future other than seeing his boys. He said a few times that he wants to use his new freedom to be himself.